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Monday, February 16, 2009

"Anger Does Not Equal Hate"

A friend of mine told me that he is not going to let me become the stereotype of “the angry black woman.” (Don't even get me started on how I feel about this stereotype.) This worries me. I worry that some of my blog readers already think it’s too late.

I am very sensitive to issues of race and write about these issues often, but I feel like people think I am spending too much time focusing on the negative and not the positive. It has always been my assumption that the positive doesn’t even need to be mentioned because it’s so obvious. For instance, just because I mention a racist instance in Riverdale, doesn’t mean I think that it speaks for all of Riverdale or all of white Jews. Obviously, there are white Jews who are NOT racists and by highlighting the few instances where I have found a few racists, I don’t mean to nullify their existence.

A friend of mine who also gives speeches is worried about the people who attack her at these events for pretending to speak for an entire people. I have been subject to the same when speaking about race. I am always well aware when I am speaking that I am speaking for myself which is why I couch many of the things I say in my own personal anecdotes, not impersonal statistics. I am just one person, one very short, little person at that, who is trying to correct the wrongs I see by striving towards a Jewish people that is always acting as light unto the nations.